Helping Californians Save for a Secure Retirement: Democratic Legislators Support

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

In this week’s Democratic weekly radio address, Assemblymember Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) talks about creating the California Employee Savings Program to provide voluntary, secure, and completely portable supplemental retirement savings accounts for working Californians.

You may listen in English or Spanish. The transcript follows.

Hello, this is Assemblymember Kevin de León.

The California Public Employees Retirement System, also known as CalPERS, stands today as one of the most successful and well-respected pension funds in the world.

With a quarter-trillion dollars in assets, CalPERS’ smart investment strategies are helping over a million-and-a-half public employees in California retire with financial confidence.

Unfortunately, far too many Californians lack the financial security, independence and peace of mind that a private retirement account provides.

Too many in the private sector have seen their benefits slashed as a result of corporate restructuring.

We’ve watched too many families lose their life savings because of corporate malfeasance like we saw with Enron, while others move from job to job, never staying long enough to establish a longstanding retirement account.

And many more families see the barriers in establishing retirement accounts and instead prefer to avoid the hassle.

After hearing too many of these stories, I have introduced AB2940 to give all Californians access to the strength and stability of CalPERS.

Millions of working Californians, the backbone of our economy, are putting in hours and hours of work day after day, but when they retire they have nothing to show for it -- no savings plan, no retirement fund, no rainy day monies set aside.